AI Chat

This plugin adds a chat to your intranet. Staff ask a question in plain language, get an answer written from your intranet’s own content with links to the pages it came from, and can then ask a follow-up question, because the chat remembers what has been said. It appears as a button in the corner of every page, on a page of its own, or both.

The chat is part of Agento Intelligence. It uses the same AI server, the same index of your content, the same access rules, safety screening, rate limits and logs as the assistant, and it needs the Agento Intelligence plugin, version 1.10.8 or later, to be installed and set up. See Setup Agento Intelligence. Nothing is sent to any outside AI service.

Before you start

  • Agento Intelligence must be connected to your AI server and your content indexed. If the assistant works, the chat will work.
  • Who can use the chat is decided by Agento Intelligence’s Access mode. With “Logged in users only”, the chat button and the shortcode show nothing to people who are not logged in.
  • Switch on Collect feedback in Agento Intelligence if you want “Was this helpful?” buttons under each answer, and Log questions to see what people ask.

Set up the chat

Go to Options, then Chat. Only administrators can see it. Select Update to save.

  • Chat button: shows a button in the bottom right corner of every page that opens the chat. Off by default. The theme’s Back to top link moves out of its way.
  • Title: the words on the button and at the top of the chat. The default is “Ask for help”. Something that says what the chat knows about works best, such as “Ask about HR” or “Ask the intranet”.
  • Welcome message: the first thing the chat says. The default is “Hello. Ask me how to do something and I will look it up in the guidance.” Tell people what the chat can and cannot answer.
  • Example questions: one per line, up to four. They appear as buttons at the start of a conversation, and selecting one asks it. Use real questions that the intranet answers well, in the words staff use.
  • Chat instructions: optional. A sentence or two telling the assistant what this chat is for and who uses it, such as “You help intranet editors use WordPress and the Govintra theme.” This shapes the tone and focus of answers. It cannot give the assistant new knowledge: answers still come only from your indexed content.
  • Conversation memory: how many earlier questions and answers the assistant is given with each new question, from 0 to 6. The default is 3. At 0 every question is answered on its own, as the assistant does. A higher number lets a conversation go further but gives the AI more to read each time, so answers take a little longer.

Put the chat on a page

Instead of, or as well as, the button, place the chat in a page’s content with the shortcode [govintra_chat]. It fills the width of the content area, which suits a dedicated “Ask a question” page. A page that carries the shortcode does not show the corner button as well.

The shortcode takes the same optional settings as the assistant, to narrow what the chat looks at:

  • type: task, page, training, project, media, person or team, or several separated by commas. [govintra_chat type="person,team"] makes a chat about people and teams.
  • category and tag: the slug of a category or tag. [govintra_chat category="human-resources"] makes an HR chat.
  • limit: how many pages an answer can draw on, normally 5 and at most 15.

What staff see

  • The button opens a panel with the title, the welcome message and the example questions. Selecting Close, or pressing Escape, closes it. The panel stays open as the person moves from page to page until they close it.
  • They type a question and press Enter or select Send. Shift and Enter starts a new line. While the AI works, the chat says “Looking that up. This can take a minute.”
  • Each answer ends with Read more, the pages the answer was drawn from. Encourage staff to follow those links for the full guidance.
  • If feedback is on, Was this helpful? with Helpful and Not helpful buttons appears under each answer.
  • New conversation appears once the chat has answered. It clears the thread and starts afresh. Use it when changing subject.
  • The conversation stays in the browser tab, across pages, until the tab is closed. It is not shared with other tabs or devices.
  • On a phone the panel fills the width of the screen.

How the conversation works

When someone asks a follow-up such as “and how much do I get?”, the AI server reads the earlier turns and turns the follow-up into a complete question, such as “How much annual leave do I get?”, before it searches your content. That complete question is what the chat remembers and what appears in the logs. If a question is too vague to answer from the content, or could mean several things, the chat asks one short clarifying question instead of guessing. How-to answers come as short numbered steps.

The earlier turns are kept on your intranet’s own server, tied to the person and to that conversation, for up to an hour after the last message, then forgotten. The browser never sends the earlier turns itself, so they cannot be tampered with. Follow-up answers are never reused for anyone else. Each question and answer is screened, logged and rate limited exactly as the assistant’s are.

Messages staff may see

  • “Please type a longer question.” or “Please shorten your question.” The question is under the minimum or over the maximum length, which is 500 characters unless changed.
  • “I can only answer questions about content on this site.” The content safety screen or the injection screen refused the question.
  • “Too many questions in a short time. Please try again shortly.” The rate limit. Wait a minute.
  • “Sorry, that took too long and the connection dropped. Please try asking again.” The AI took longer than the web server allows. This happens on a busy or CPU-only AI server. Asking again usually works, because the search is quicker the second time.
  • “Sorry, something went wrong. Please try again.” The AI server could not be reached. If it keeps happening, check the System status tab in Agento Intelligence.
  • “The chat needs JavaScript. You can use the site search instead.” Shown to the rare browser with scripts off.

Tips

  • Write four example questions before you switch the button on. They teach people what to ask and what the chat is for.
  • Use the chat instructions to name your audience. “Most people asking are new staff” gives gentler, fuller answers than none at all.
  • Read the questions log after the first month. Questions the chat could not answer are pages you need to write or improve.
  • Keep the assistant too. The chat suits how-to conversations; the assistant’s single question and answer on the How do I? page is quicker for a one-off.

See also What is Agento Intelligence? and Agento Intelligence: what you get and what it costs. Other plugins are listed under Available plugins.